Here's a look at a map I've been working on now and then for upwards of a year. A showcase thread has been active for a while on Map Review, you may have seen shots there. In any case, the Bloodmine is a large capture-the-flag map designed around a vertical mine shaft, with the red flag base on the lowest level and the blue flag base on the top.

First, some older shots to tantalize you and establish things, before I showcase the most recent (ie, done today) work:

The latest shot from the bottom of the main shaft. I've added distance fog for a dirtier, hazier look.

Latest shot from the top of the main shaft. You can see some added machinery, which moves around and can alter the playing field to a limited extent.

A piece of the aforementioned machinery, which tracks back and forth across the shaft.

Moving upwards from the bare-rock areas, we have a control room with an experiment in fan-shadow-faking.

A better look at Lasse's favorite passageway.

A secondary control room on the topmost level of the mine complex. The glass panel in the foreground is an accurate map of the whole mine, collected from Radiant screenshots. I've yet to decide if the map will convey any useful CTF information...

The control center/blue flag base. The flag will stand on the podium to the left, under which runs a passage connecting the cargo holding bay and the docking bay. More control panels and displays still to be added, along with cieling lights.

The (rudimentary so far) docking bay, with cargo transport at the ready. I'm gonna add clutter to the floor.
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Okay...that's about all for now. Enjoy the shots, my friends, please comment on them, and await the release of the map! I am hoping beyond hope to get it finished by the end of January. This map has been slowly eating at me for so long...and I expect it will be my Jedi Academy finale--but who knows, with this gone, I might be able to recover my mapping mood long enough to produce some small duels or something. (Probably not, but you never know.)

Maybe you could allow some scripted (or just entity based) control of some of the machinery. Thus, a cunning player could wait near the controls and when a gullible player walks down the path, the wily player could doom him to a deus ex machina death.

Well, you know, Mongo, mine shafts do tend to be rather circular. It's not a natural cave, it's been drilled. Note the boring marks on the rock texture... The lights in the central shaft are also regularly spaced on beams and struts, how much less random could I get?

Looks good, but the rock part, I find it very odd for it to be perfectly smooth and circular and have depth in the texture when it is perfectly circular. Just add more architecture to it to make it look realistic.

>95% of the knowledgeable, experienced JA CTF players go to one or both of those boards. Mappers from within the CTF community have greatly benefited from the suggestions, criticisms, and testing that their maps have received. If you want input from players who play hard-core CTF and really understand issues like speed routes, bottlenecks, weapon spawn points, amount of health\shields\ammo on the map, etc. those are the places to go.

Just be forewarned that they are a somewhat opinionated and rude bunch. You will have to have a thick skin. Be prepared for some "your map looks nice, but gameplay sucks" to just plain "this map sucks" comments. But then they will tell you how to make it better, and the feedback is invaluable.

Amidala, I appreciate the sentiment, but at this point I'm more interested in just getting the thing outta my hair - it's been sitting on my HD for over a year now and it's WAY beyond the point where new WIP threads could possibly be helpful to me. Unfortunately, you posted jsut after I started my closed beta. Hopefully, the map's good enough for many CTFers.